Cooking with gas? You may have air quality that would be ilegal if found outside!

Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds that "interior air quality in homes that cook with a gas stove can reach pollutant levels that would be illegal if found outdoors."

Full Article

Contaminates include nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, and carbon monoxide.


My inspection reports always stress that in all homes with gas cook-top or ovens, the occupant needs to run the range hood during the entire cooking period and for at least 1 minutes after the burners have shut down.  However, the above mentioned article also touches on range hood effectiveness:

"Previous studies have found that range hoods vary widely in their effectiveness at removing pollutants. In a laboratory study of seven models ranging from $40 to $650, Singer found capture efficiencies ranging from 15 to 98 percent, and also found that a higher price did not guarantee better performance."

So it is important that the range hood stays on long enough after the cooking period to adequately remove the contaminants.  A better option is to have never installed the gas appliance in the first place.

Carbon monoxide law draws criticism

Manitoba has just announced it is making it mandatory for all homes to be retrofitted with a CO sensor. I applaud this decision and hope that it will ripple to other provinces including BC as well.

As a home inspector, I ALWAYS recommend a CO sensor in any home with gas appliances or an attached garage. I am dissapointed that some mayors and building officials in Manitoba only look at the logistics and costs of the inspections or false alarms.

Is saving a life not worth all the false alarms that may occure over a year?

This article explains CO gas and where the sensors should be located.